occasionally bombarding the headquarters in an irregular manner

January 21, 2014

guns of January

Now the Chosun Ilbo is the voice of South Korean conservatism and as such not averse to imagining such crises in North Korea that do not actually exist, so take this with whatever condiments seem appropriate:

North Korea has been building concrete machine-gun pillboxes along the border with China since December as the Chinese staged massive military drills in the area.

North Korea Reform Radio quoted a North Korean source as saying each platoon of the border guard units stationed at strategic points along the Apnok and Duman Rivers has been ordered to build three concrete machine-gun emplacements. Officers of each brigade and battalion are looking for rebar and cement outside their camps.

The pretext is that South Korean forces are massing in China for an invasion. This is nonsense of course, but it may be an oblique reference to the fact that Seoul and Beijing have drawn together in recent months under pressure of Japanese revanchism – and also maybe a growing perception in Beijing that North Korea is now a problem rather than just a problematic ally

It’s also true that the 39th Group Army has been marching up and down the border region on a series of exercises since, oh, since just about the time it was announced that Jang Song-taek had been executed. This is surely just a demonstration, but I can’t think of a time before when China made such an obvious display clearly intended for the notice of Pyongyang, or any ally. There have also been reports through 2013 that North Korea was fortifying the Chinese border, though this was explained in terms of stopping defections.

The other fun factoid here is that as I understand it around 70% of the KPA is concentrated on the inter-Korean border, making an incursion from the North a more feasible prospect if a decision had been made to end the Kimist dispensation. Of course, any such move would require Seoul’s approval, which in turn means US signoff, and that’s unlikely given that it would mean the US accepting a de facto Chinese sphere of influence in northeast Asia. But anyway: Yanbian China bears watching over the next few months.

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Comments

As farfetched as a Chinese invasion is, would it really need South Korean signoff? What would preclude them from reaching some sort of Molotov-Ribbentrop accommodation where they divided the spoils once an invasion occurred? Would South Korea accept selling out parts of the North to re-take Pyongyang? Especially if both sides only had to salvage/industrialize half a country as opposed to a whole one?

Not that there's much chance of negotiations or invasion preparations going unnoticed but it could be fun to speculate.

What would be in it for China to invade anyway, unless they think that total internal collapse is imminent and would rather take direct control than have a failed state on their border? Even then, it seems an expensive way to go about things. Haven't they got any proxies?

well, if JST wasn't an actual Chinese proxy he was widely thought of as China's man in the sense that he vaguely stood for rational authoritarian development.

I think the point about getting Seoul's signoff is that in the report North Korea is signalling South Korean responsibility for any incursion over the Yalu through that ridiculous tale about South Korean troops disguised as businessmen. The implication is that any incursion from the North will involve Seoul in the traditional sea of fire scenario. Hence it would be prudent for Beijing to get some kind of agreement from the South about preventing this if it plans to go over the border.

I don;t think this is at all likely as of *right now*. But it is remarkable that Beijing has decided to publicly signal its displeasure with Pyongyang so openly and in this way.

ajay: 'Looks like Beijing, Tianjin, Shenyang, Dalian and Qingdao are all within missile range of North Korea, too.'

Good point. Although, thinking about it, if I were at the top of the North Korean leadership, crazy though I would probably be, I think I would still not want to count on the restraint of the Chinese leadership in the event of my chucking missiles at their country. After all, I would (hopefully) tell myself, the Chinese leadership have got a much, much bigger nuclear arsenal than I have...